


could it be anybody

by attheborder



Category: The Terror (TV 2018)
Genre: Blow Jobs, First Time, M/M, Post-Episode 5, What Happens in the Orlop Stays in the Orlop
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-08
Updated: 2021-02-08
Packaged: 2021-03-13 11:15:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,799
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29277567
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/attheborder/pseuds/attheborder
Summary: Tozer gets by with a little help from his friend.For Terror Rarepair Week 2021, prompt: "I heard someone say..."
Relationships: Thomas Armitage/Solomon Tozer
Comments: 18
Kudos: 37
Collections: The Terror Rarepair Week 2021





	could it be anybody

“You shouldn’t have left it overnight,” Dr. McDonald tutted.

Well, that wasn’t any fault of Sol’s, was it. In the mad rush up on deck and then below, watching with a sick stomach as Mr. Blanky’s leg was sawn clean off, him passed out from the pain afterwards and Captain Crozier near weeping beside him, Sol had forgotten about his own wound entirely. By the time it had begun to throb noticeably, McDonald and Peddie had been abed, and Sol himself had been so exhausted from the night’s events that he’d crawled into his hammock and fallen into a tortured sleep, a strange mechanism of his dreams transforming the sound of the ice in the night into the roars of the beast.

“Sorry, sir,” he said, instead of explaining any of that. Wouldn’t want to bother the good doctor with his grousing, not when he was treating him so kind, without saying a word about how feeble-minded it was for him to have grabbed onto the cannon without his glove like that.

“Well, there you are, Sergeant,” said Dr. McDonald, tying off the bandage with a knot neat as any sailor’s. “You’re to leave it alone for a while, now. Keep it relaxed—no lifting, no firing your gun. No going back out into the cold.”

“But I’ve got watch—”

“I’ll inform L—I’ll let the Captain know, to have you excused,” said the doctor sternly.

Sol sighed, and flexed his hand experimentally; winced at the shock of pain that traveled up his arm as the bandages dug into the raw edges of the wound.

“Leave it alone, lad,” Dr. McDonald repeated. “Or else it won’t heal. Won’t take long, if you follow my orders. Only a day or two until you can resume your duties, but longer if you irritate it. Do you hear, Sergeant?”

“Yes, sir,” said Sol.

When he showed up to breakfast, holding his bandaged hand awkwardly at an angle, the Marines already assembled at the mess-table of course spotted it immediately, and launched into a round of friendly ribbing.

“You’ll be needing help getting yourself off for a while, then, eh?” Hedges laughed.

“Ah, fuck you, I can go a few days without. Worth it, to have helped put a cannonball in that thing up there.”

When the bell rang and Lane called out the watch, Sol watched his men go off to fetch their slops and head up to the weather deck; an impotent envy burned low in his stomach, laying in an oily layer atop his morning coffee.

It rankled him to have been put on the sick list, for such a petty reason—would be different if he were laid up, of course, ill or seriously injured, but he could walk about just fine, and that bear was still out there, wasn’t it, with Mr. Blanky’s blood on its great claws and murder in its mouth. Who was he if he wasn’t doing all he could in order to defend _Terror_ and her remaining men?

He sighed, remembering McDonald’s instructions. Discipline, it just required discipline, was all, and he had plenty of that to spare, didn’t he? Practically made of the stuff, right.

For lack of anything else to do, and an unwillingness to be seen lazing in his hammock, he took himself down to the orlop to have a sit and a smoke.

Once he’d found a quiet dark corner, and hung his lantern above, he dug a cigarette out of his pocket, and his matchbox too. Then he was faced with a dilemma—he could not quite manipulate the lucifer and the box together to strike it with just the one hand.

He would’ve figured it out, probably, eventually—except then from off in the dark he heard steps on the companion-ladder. “Who’s there?” he called.

“Just me, Sergeant. Come to fetch coal.”

“Oh—Mr. Armitage. You’ve picked up something from Mr. Jopson, moving around quiet like that.”

“I heard someone say you got hurt,” Armitage said tentatively. “But you weren’t in the sick bay, so I didn’t believe ‘em…”

As he approached, moving into the light, Sol felt an odd flush of emotion—he hadn’t seen Armitage since before the attack last night, and though he knew well that the steward been down below, hidden away while he and the others on deck battled the beast, it was a fine thing to see proof he’d not come to harm.

“Nah, I’m alright,” said Sol. “Just a scratch, really. Only bother is I can’t use the hand for a bit.”

With a steward’s intuition, Armitage seemed to perceive straightaway Sol’s current awkward dilemma. “Here, let me, sir,” he said, coming close; he took the match and box from Sol and struck it, then held up the flame so Sol could lean forward, cigarette in mouth.

Once he’d breathed out his first pull, Sol handed the cigarette to Armitage, who seemed surprised and then, taking it from him, grateful.

Sol liked to surprise him: liked seeing how wide those eyes could get. A few times before he’d shocked him with a bawdy joke or a feat of gunnery—Armitage’s mouth always made a little _O,_ before relaxing into a smile, just like it did now.

“Sit down, will you,” he said, motioning his bad hand at the empty crate beside him. “No need to stay on your feet.”

Of all the stewards, Sol was fond of Armitage the most: he was good company, a far more agreeable sort than joyless Gibson or prissy Jopson or dull Genge. And competent, too, in a way that cheered Sol to see, the sight of him efficiently managing the armory a balm compared to the often indecent disorganization of command.

They smoked the cigarette down to its end together, passing it back and forth in silence, and as Sol stubbed it out on the crate beside him Armitage shifted nervously. “Anything… else you need help with, sir?” he said, a little louder than he needed to.

Clearly, he meant it as a joke—or at least that’s what Sol thought, til he looked to the side and saw not a smile of self-amusement on Armitage’s face but instead a fearful, regretful sort of look, pointed straight down to where his worn boots met the deck.

_Ah, Christ—he’s serious._

Yeah, Sol had thought about it. Course he had—sweet lad like that, with a pink mouth and dark curls and a fine arse, was hard _not_ to think about it. Hadn’t planned acting on it, naturally, he wasn’t so wicked as to try and seduce an innocent, but they’d not even set out across Baffin Bay before Armitage—or, at least, a boy with Armitage’s face, for Sol had hardly known him, really—had started appearing in the pictures that ran through his head at night.

“Think there might be, Mr. Armitage,” Sol said, lightly. Must’ve been the right thing to say, because Armitage raised his head slowly and blinked over at him—a long slow moment, Sol holding his gaze with the air of a dare, then tilting his own chin up just a bit, to serve as an invitation.

As if tugged like a puppet on a string, Armitage slid loosely to his knees, settling on the deck with a soft _thunk._ Out of habit and readiness, Sol went for his own flies; but Armitage said, “No, your hand—let me,” and so Sol held his bandaged palm carefully out of the way while Armitage opened his trousers and pushed his shirttails underneath swiftly to the side.

“Not used to having a steward,” said Sol in a low wry voice. “Won’t make you do my washing as well, promise.”

Again, that gently surprised look when Armitage came face-to-face with Sol’s prick—he hesitated for just long enough for the urge to apologize to rise up inside Sol, and be quickly batted away by his own desire—and then he seemed to finish dithering, finally, and put that lovely mouth right on it. Sol let out a satisfied sound; Armitage seemed encouraged by it to take Sol deeper.

The lad had probably not done this before—or at least not in a while—or possibly just never on a prick so proud as Sol’s, which was a thought. He’d have plenty of time to train him up, if he’d be amenable.

Spit dripped down Armitage’s chin and he struggled to find a rhythm, but his sloppiness only endeared. Sol pressed his unhurt palm on the back of Armitage’s head and gently guided him into a steady motion, careful to ease up when he heard coughs and splutters, but savoring the sounds all the same.

“Your hand,” Sol huffed out eventually, “use your hand as well,” and Armitage sprang into action, eager as anything, working his hand at the base of Sol’s prick with what was, probably by coincidence, exactly the right amount of pressure. “There, that’s it, that’s—” and he crested the rise of his pleasure right into Armitage’s warm mouth, Armitage swallowing him down breathlessly and messily, gasping around Sol with enthusiasm.

Blinking through the heavy curtain of his crisis, Sol found himself staring down at a vision from on high: Armitage, with a wet silver arc of Sol’s spend linking his slightly open mouth with the tip of Sol’s prick; hair mussed like a dark halo and cheekbones now thrown into relief by the glow from above.

The image dissolved when Armitage wiped his mouth with his sleeve; but the sight of him doing up Sol’s clothes again with his quick practiced fingers was nearly just as good.

“I ought to get myself on the sick list more often, if this is the sort of medicine I’m offered.”

“Don’t need to be sick,” said Armitage, again a bit too loudly. Sol was charmed; before Armitage could get off his knees, he leaned over and pressed his good hand to the side of Armitage’s face, stroking his thumb along the start of stubble at his cheek, then taking care to wipe a fleck of seed from right above his upper lip.

Thoughts floated up through Sol’s mind, with Armitage’s skin hot under his hand; but like a soap-bubble they vanished just on the verge of being visible when Armitage drew away. He got a bit unsteadily to his feet, adjusted his neckerchief, and turned to go.

“Tom, hey,” Sol called after him. He’d overheard some of Armitage’s mates call him that before—always thought it suited him, though not as well as 'Tommy' might. That could come later.

Armitage stopped, but did not turn around. “Yes, sir.”

Sol picked up the box of matches and rattled it. “Stay, won't you—unless you’ve got somewhere to be? Could use your help lighting another.”

***

**Author's Note:**

> tommy armitage, founding member of sgt. tozer's lonely hearts club band. 
> 
> this story was inspired by [this important tweet.](https://twitter.com/carefulwren/status/1349956781724889089?s=21)
> 
> i'm on [twitter](http://twitter.com/areyougonnabe) and [tumblr!](http://areyougonnabe.tumblr.com)


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